Tuesday, May 31, 2011

I have gotten a ‘little’ behind in showing the Heritage Show and Tell pictures…so pour yourself a coffee, put your feet up and ENJOY!…

Vickie shared how she used the Pounce (looks like a school chalk brush full of chalk) and a stencil to make these butterflies which she then free motioned and then joined with little loop-ti-doops! Very nice! She used this fabric to practice on and then turned it into a Charity Quilt…a win, win for everyone! This lovely scrappy quilt was getting pinned, ready for quilting…

Isn’t this a beauty…and man was it was HUGE!!

Sharing some lovely snap bags…

A stunning whole cloth quilt…sorry the pictures aren’t great...but it is all hand quilted complete with Trapunto in the middle! This took Darlene three YEARS to complete (working off and on:o)

Some close-ups….

Just incredible!

Here’s Grandma Sharon’s quilt…yup another grandson was born…this gorgeous quilt is for her new GREAT grandson but I couldn’t have hear that right…Sharon is FAR TOO YOUNG for that!!

Little Tyson is going to love his quilt! Here’s the label that Delores made to go on this quilt…hmmm…I wonder if Sharon is the Nana or the Great Nanna?

Regardless, this Nana is pretty proud of this wonderful quilt as she she should be…and LOOK, she even matches!!

Someone gave Delores a flannel panel and she cut it up and turned it into this sweet and cuddly Charity Quilt!!

Adorable!

And you can’t go wrong with Churn Dashes…lovely!

A lattice quilt…love the little inside lattice border too!

There is a population explosion of Chubby Bags…and it’s no wonder…they are just so dang cute!!

So fresh and clean…like Spring….

Isn’t this a FUN quilt!! Very cute!

Gorgeous quilt…made from a stash of batiks!

This fun quilt was made for a Nursing friend!!

She is going to LOVE it!

Whew!! Yes, these quilters HAVE been VERY busy!! What an inspiration to be in their company!!

Sunday, May 29, 2011

…If you have ever had a Garage Sale then you know how much work they are…these pictures were taken towards the end of the day… ‘stuff’ was packed on tables inside the garage and then went right up both sides of the driveway…

..and around the corner!

Upon looking at these pictures I am amazed at how bare each area is…(compared to what we put out in the morning)! We couldn’t put out all the clothes right away as we had no room and…look…hardly anything left!! Next year I will have to take ‘before and after’ pictures.

These pictures don’t show you all the fun we had too! Lots of laughs… especially when everything goes on ‘sale’… “Tell you what, I’ll give YOU $1 to take away this filing cabinet??…OK…make it $2!”

This story had a VERY happy ending…we made over $1300!! Amazing when you think of all the junk that was out there!! But then you know the old saying…one woman’s trash, is another woman’s treasure!

I pulled out these two Civil War Charm packs bought at the Calico Horse Quilt Shop…

…and in less than half an hour…I had a stack of these lovely little guys!

Man, I love my GO! Thanks SEW much, Kathy!!

I hope you get to have some quilty fun today!

As for me, I am off to a garage sale…not to buy but to work. My ladies group is having it’s annual Garage Sale to raise money for various charities. Last year we raised over a $1000…and we are hoping that we can do the same this year…and if you look at all the ‘junk’ that we’ve donated, we should do just that!! Let’s hope the sun shines! Man I sure want a lot don’t I!!

Friday, May 27, 2011

Our local quilt shop, The Cloth Castle, went to the Salt Lake City Quilter’s Market a few weeks ago…so last night they had a Show and Tell of all the lovely things they ordered or brought back! It was great!

All of their loyal and best costumers were there (and of course that would include ME!) Such fun to see all the things that we drooled over during Market week…that is by looking at the market pictures on everyone's blog! It was great to hear all the stories of the Running with the Bulls Quilters for the Market Sample Spree! It was almost like being there…pushing and shoving to get to the Moda Booth!!

Natasha broke us down into groups and we rotated to four different stations…

BUT what REALLY got my heart pumping was when she brought out her own personal Fat Quarter Bundle of Lynette Anderson’s new fabric line ‘Scandinavian Christmas’!! STUNNING!! I could tell that she loves them as much as I do… they went right back under the counter away from sweaty, sticky, pawing hands!! DARN! Just one touch was all I wanted…maybe fan through them a few times…but it was not to be!! I will have to wait for the REAL deal when the whole line comes to the shop! (happy dance!!!)

Then it was onto Vandie’s Station~ fabric painting. It was really interesting and I could REALLY get into this BUT I can’t get sucked into another craft! You should see my Scrapbooking stuff and my beading stuff and my stain glass stuff…you get the idea!! I had to be STRONG!!

One of the things she shared were these templates for doing fabric silhouettes using a stencil brush and paint crayons…very cool!

Brian shared the latest technology for embroidery machines, certain books, basket weaving using cloth and the GO! Cutting Machine. He demonstrated how to incorporated embroidery with the GO! which was cool…but not in my budget!

And last but not least…Dave/Dennis/Don???(my mind is a steel trap…with an open door!!) showed us sewing machines…most of them can fly you to the moon and back…sigh…but I have to stay loyal and true to my little Jan(ome), who is waiting for me at home…

During break time, Bettie a sewer/designer/teacher from Arizona gave us a little trunk show of some of the quilt classes she will be teaching this Summer and Fall.

So pull up a chair, have a brownie or two and a cool refreshing drink…(which is what we did) and watch the show…

Looks like Bettie’s classes will be fun, interesting and you will learn lots!

The best part of the evening was at the end…DOOR PRIZES!! LOTS of them!!

They gave away tons of autographed books, patterns, jelly rolls and layer cakes, gadgets and gizmos…. See all those heads in front of me…all won! Beside me and behind me…ALL won!! I came with my friends Vicki and Sandy…BOTH WON!! Me?…I am only lucky in BLOGLAND!! :o)

Hope you enjoyed Market as much as I did!! Thanks SEW much Cloth Castle for a fun night out!! Can’t wait to see the shelves stocked with all these wonderful things!

Thursday, May 26, 2011

I know, I know…you are probably sick and tired of Settler’s Pride but good news…we are on the last little turn, heading for the finish-line!!…and you really don’t have to read this!! I won’t be too insulted!…well maybe just a little…

I have finished the hand quilting!!(happy dance)…and have moved onto the binding. Now the pattern doesn’t say to put on binding…(Maggie Bonanomi says to back the quilt with homespun or cotton ticking and turn under the raw edges and whipstitch all around.) BUT I want a nice, sturdy finish to this quilt so I went with binding.

With the exception of the backing, the whole quilt is 100% wool and that’s what I wanted my binding to be. I looked all over On Line for a nice light weight 100 % wool and finally found some “100% Light Weight Wool Suiting”…black and white check with a brown and blue strip..I figured if it was too light I would dye it!

It arrived yesterday…perfect timing! As soon as I took the wool out of the package I KNEW it wasn’t 100% wool…it wasn’t soft and it had a shine to it..:o( I did a burn test and sure enough the hard crispy edge indicated to me that there was indeed a man made fibre in it. It did flake too so my guess was that it was a wool blend. Oh well…let’s look at this in a favourable light…the man made fiber will add strength to the binding.

I knew that I would have to dye it to tone it down a bit…so I got the dye pot going and to make a long story short…dyed it THREE times…the last time I dumped the whole container of black dye in the pot…the fabric was not taking any more of the dye…that was the problem with man made fibers!! They won’t take dyes…but the wool picked up enough of the dye to turn the fabric a grey/black colour and you can faintly see the blue/brown check…so I am ready to proceed! It’s the best I can do…

This is it after being dyed once…

The camera is making the binding fabric look lighter than it is in real life so keep that in mind.

After the third and last dye job….

Hope I didn’t bore you too much…BUT I just wanted you to be warned …when you order on-line and they advertise one thing…you may be getting something totally different! If they had advertise this as being a wool blend I would have NEVER ordered it! Having said that…I like this and think it will work just fine! :o) Whew!

So we’ve cleared the last hurtle (barely!!)and we are heading to the finish line… (and the crowd roars…Ok…the lone person still reading this cheers…guess that’s you… so..“thanks!!”)